Users started floodingonlinemessage boards with angry reports of "Error code 503" at about 1am Pacific time, with the game telling players it had "Lost Connection To Server - Disconnect: Origin error retrieving player data from storage." EA acknowledged the issue on its Help page about an hour later, saying, "Titanfall is currently experiencing connection problems, which means you may not be able to connect to online play, or even might get dropped from an online match you're currently playing. Rest assured that we're addressing this problem and will provide updates as soon as possible."

That post was updated at 5:45am Pacific, telling players that "Titanfall's earlier connectivity issues have now been resolved, and you shouldn't have any problem getting into the game."

Most online posters were expectedly angry about the downtime. "BROTHERS WE HAVE A LEGITIMATE COMPLAINT!!" wrote one poster, presumably with a broken caps lock key. A few posters were more forgiving, though: "it mean is not solved yet people, but at least we know they are working on it so stop flaming and maybe see through your windows there is a life out site [sic] as well," wrote one.

Players on the Xbox One version of the game also faced login errors with Microsoft's Xbox Live service yesterday afternoon. Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella at one point tweeted, "I hope that isn't our fault," though Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb later said that it was "not a Titanfall issue."

EA and its server infrastructure are under intense scrutiny by many players, especially after the massiveserver issues suffered by games like SimCity and Battlefield 4. Unlike those games, though, Titanfall's online backend is being handled by Microsoft's Azure cloud system.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

I haven't enjoyed online multiplayer FPS games in years, but Titanfall has been a lot of fun the few hours I've played it. Haven't had any connection issues outside of the midnight launch and it sounds like Microsoft's new gaming-specific Azure servers are holding up really well overall. Can't imagine how badly EA would've screwed it up if they were running things.

The second is the occasional "Reconnecting to server" pop-ups that I've seen in-game. These haven't really affected things too much but I did get executed once last night due to it. Not much I can do about this though, as I'm on a 50Mbps connection and was seeing latencies in the 25ms range. Probably just due to load balancing issues serverside.

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

played a bunch last night, only got kicked out of Origin once, otherwise been very steady

Though I am perplexed about the lack of features outside of the game. For a AAA budget game I thought there would be more information. Take BF4 for example. I can go on battlelog and grab literally any match I have ever played, and run through the stats. i can compare my KD or SPM to any other player. I can check unlocks and weapon lists NBD.And this was something that was available all the way back to Halo 2!How is Titanfall missing that stuff?

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

As a "hardcore" PC gaming how can your first two things you do when you launch a game not be 1) Change video options2) Change key bindingsseriously that is what I do the first time I launch a new game 100% of the time

I wonder how the pending 360 launch of Titanfall might go over. I realize multiplayer on the 360 works very differently than on the XB1, although there is still a point where a central server hands off the assembled match for the individual 360 units to then continue on in a peer-to-peer arrangement. Curious if it will somehow leverage all/a portion of the same Azure-based backend elements that the XB1/PC version use, and how the influx of a potentially much larger audience will affect it.

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

As a "hardcore" PC gaming how can your first two things you do when you launch a game not be 1) Change video options2) Change key bindingsseriously that is what I do the first time I launch a new game 100% of the time

While a valid enough point, I like to give the defaults a shot first to see if I stumble upon something I like a little better to refine my own "default" over time.

I actually don't mind T for team chat, and in some games Y is for general chat, so that is nice and close. Odd that no one is chatting though...maybe everyone is on mumble?

played a bunch last night, only got kicked out of Origin once, otherwise been very steady

Though I am perplexed about the lack of features outside of the game. For a AAA budget game I thought there would be more information. Take BF4 for example. I can go on battlelog and grab literally any match I have ever played, and run through the stats. i can compare my KD or SPM to any other player. I can check unlocks and weapon lists NBD.And this was something that was available all the way back to Halo 2!How is Titanfall missing that stuff?

Respawn built this game on a budget that is a fraction of COD and BF. They could have begged EA for more capital and hired more folks and built out a bunch more stuff, at the cost of given up their independence. Given how their last relationship with Activision turned out, that wasn't going to happen.

The good news is that those types of things can always be added afterwards.

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

As a "hardcore" PC gaming how can your first two things you do when you launch a game not be 1) Change video options2) Change key bindingsseriously that is what I do the first time I launch a new game 100% of the time

I'm not a "hardcore" PC gamer...I was, 16ish years ago while in the midst of high school. But you're correct, the first thing I did WAS to change video and audio options and remap keys. However, since I don't use chat much, it wasn't something I worried about until it became an issue (when I was hitting it during reloads), afterwhich I cleared the key bind altogether.

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

As a "hardcore" PC gaming how can your first two things you do when you launch a game not be 1) Change video options2) Change key bindingsseriously that is what I do the first time I launch a new game 100% of the time

While a valid enough point, I like to give the defaults a shot first to see if I stumble upon something I like a little better to refine my own "default" over time.

I actually don't mind T for team chat, and in some games Y is for general chat, so that is nice and close. Odd that no one is chatting though...maybe everyone is on mumble?

What is mumble?

I think the reason why chat is minimized is due to the faster pace of this game compared to Battlefield, where chat is used a great deal (though often just by people insulting other people).

I actually prefer Battlefield's default setup for chat - J for open channel, K for team channel and L for squad channel. My hand's never in that vicinity of the keyboard accidentally so it works out well.

Xbox One here. Played a total of about 16 hours yesterday. No connection issues.

edit: why are people down-voting the fact that I was able to enjoy a game without issue?

They're down voting you because you have an Xbox One. Apparently here on Ars it's a strike against you if you own one.

Microsoft has an enormous amount of vested interest in making sure things go smoothly for this game, as it's one of the first "big" games for the XBone and they are using it in a way to prove out the gaming capabilities of the Azure cloud infrastructure.

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

As a "hardcore" PC gaming how can your first two things you do when you launch a game not be 1) Change video options2) Change key bindingsseriously that is what I do the first time I launch a new game 100% of the time

While a valid enough point, I like to give the defaults a shot first to see if I stumble upon something I like a little better to refine my own "default" over time.

I actually don't mind T for team chat, and in some games Y is for general chat, so that is nice and close. Odd that no one is chatting though...maybe everyone is on mumble?

it always takes two hands to type, so I always make the team/all chat buttons on the right side for the precise reason of not ever accidentally hitting them"Enter" - All chat"\" - Team Chat"]" - Squad chat

Had install issues with DirectX error that was resolved with a Repair run.

Load times are long, but they improved after defragging the HD.

Right now, I'm mostly Titan-Flail - run around and die a lot. I did have one Attrition match as an Assasin where I accidentally found a good cover spot with a good field of fire and actually killed 2 Pilots and 3 Grunts. Other than that, still getting used to it.

I have an XBox Controller but using mouse/keyboard.

No issues connecting or in game...in fact, other than install issue, absolutely solid launch for me.

I haven't gotten around to installing and playing this yet, so I have no opinion on the actual game or launch. I just felt the need to post:

50GB? LOLWUT

It's a 20GB download that is unpacked at 50GB because of Origin's pretty bad language pack management. They include all of the separate language audio packs to get around multinational play. It's not that much bigger download then any other triple AAA game of the last year.

Started to play around 2AM EST, got halfway through one game of attrition and the xbox one hard locked up with a repeating sound glitch, then kicked back to the home screen, went back in and no further issues.

I wonder how the pending 360 launch of Titanfall might go over. I realize multiplayer on the 360 works very differently than on the XB1, although there is still a point where a central server hands off the assembled match for the individual 360 units to then continue on in a peer-to-peer arrangement. Curious if it will somehow leverage all/a portion of the same Azure-based backend elements that the XB1/PC version use, and how the influx of a potentially much larger audience will affect it.

It will use the Azure backend.

Multiplayer architecture depends a lot more on the game itself than on the system it runs on. Xbox Live provides services to support multiplayer functionality, but it doesn't define the architecture of a game--how could it?

Titanfall multiplayer is built to run on Azure, regardless of platform.

I know I'm old fashioned but I very rarely pre order or buy any games just after release. I prefer reading reviews, articles like this or some forums. If game is good I buy it. I can live without some "hot" title for couple of days or weeks or just be happy that I didn't waste my money.

played a bunch last night, only got kicked out of Origin once, otherwise been very steady

Though I am perplexed about the lack of features outside of the game. For a AAA budget game I thought there would be more information. Take BF4 for example. I can go on battlelog and grab literally any match I have ever played, and run through the stats. i can compare my KD or SPM to any other player. I can check unlocks and weapon lists NBD.And this was something that was available all the way back to Halo 2!How is Titanfall missing that stuff?

Because Respawn is a new, small team, and building that sort of web-connected stat tracking is not easy or cheap. Better to get the game out the door and then worry about that stuff later.

Activision brought in a whole separate studio (Beachhead) to do CoD stat-tracking. Battlelog was originally a generic stat tracking product from a completely different, independent studio (ESN), which EA licensed. EA later bought the company outright. As for Halo... Bungie was owned by the largest software company in the world; they could just call someone at Xbox ATG and they'd have it done by Friday.

On behalf of all Diablo 3 players who suffered through the launch day Error 37, we feel for you guys. We know how much it sucks not to be able to play at launch because of a connection issue on the server side.

To those of you on the PC, how are they handling team chat? Is there a built in voice service, or are they relying on text? Both?

There is both team chat and built-in voice service. I haven't encountered anyone using either yet though. Not even the typical "GG"s that fly at the end of a round as in Battlefield. The chat is mapped (by default, changeable) to "T" in-game so I kept hitting it accidentally when reloading.

As a "hardcore" PC gaming how can your first two things you do when you launch a game not be 1) Change video options2) Change key bindingsseriously that is what I do the first time I launch a new game 100% of the time

While a valid enough point, I like to give the defaults a shot first to see if I stumble upon something I like a little better to refine my own "default" over time.

I actually don't mind T for team chat, and in some games Y is for general chat, so that is nice and close. Odd that no one is chatting though...maybe everyone is on mumble?

What is mumble?

I think the reason why chat is minimized is due to the faster pace of this game compared to Battlefield, where chat is used a great deal (though often just by people insulting other people).

I actually prefer Battlefield's default setup for chat - J for open channel, K for team channel and L for squad channel. My hand's never in that vicinity of the keyboard accidentally so it works out well.

Mumble is an open-source encrypted chat program with usability and simplicity falling somewhere between vent and teamspeak.

crystal clear, low bandwidth, and zero lag between talking and hearing, even running the small server for myself and friends to use off of an old laptop hidden in a closet. Vent was super easy to manage but suffered the 8-client limit for the free version and sometimes horrible (2 to 10 second) delays between someone speaking and you actually hearing them. (this is from my personal server, no such problems running mumble)

pretty much have 10 of us where we just connect, see who's on if we've got free time and chit chat while playing or just generally on computer. It's basically replaced msn messenger for me, despite having no offline messaging. Using that we forgo any in-game chat included with whatever games.